Do you want to make use of the best social media marketing for restaurants but don’t know where to start? How about we guide you to optimize your social media presence, gain followers, and improve brand awareness?
Restaurant businesses cannot exist without social media; however, businesses can thrive beyond social media if things are done the right way.
Generally speaking, 71% of social media users with a good experience with a brand will recommend that brand to a friend.
Gen X and Millennials are 99% more likely to choose a restaurant based on social media and online reviews.
Potential customers access your Facebook page to check out your menu and reviews written by other customers that visited your restaurant.
It would be best to have a social media account for your business and start engaging with your customers.
Benefits of Social Media for Restaurant
- Improves Customer Experience
- Builds Brand Loyalty and Trust
- Drives Brand Advocacy
- Improves Quality and Service for Your Restaurant
1.Improves Customer Experience
A good restaurant is not only synonymous with great food, but it is about the experience it offers. Customers use social media to share their happy moments with their friends and family while they dine out. So encourage your customers to share happy moments at your restaurant with their friends, which will improve the overall customer experience.
2.Builds Brand Loyalty and Trust
Social media connects you to your customers and establishes brand loyalty. A good selection of user-generated content influences customers to reward you, even when dealing with negative reviews.
It is not about a negative review that you should be anxious about. But it is in your ability to address it promptly and gently and how you solve it politely so that it is not repeated. Negative reviews will make your customers know how well you respond to customer concerns and how fast you work to rectify those issues.
3.Drives Brand Advocacy
When you have a healthy relationship with your customers, you will never know who will become your loyal brand advocate. Your brand advocate is a customer willingly sharing your restaurant’s food and services. You can utilize them and develop creative ways to reach potential customers. Have customers participate in surveys, identify potential brand advocates, and establish a connection with them to enhance brand reachability.
4.Improves Quality and Service of Your Restaurant
When your customers share their experiences on social media, every dish you serve comes under scrutiny. That means you are motivated to take more responsibility for enhancing the quality of your food and services. So make sure your food tastes as good as it looks.
This blog answers all your questions about social media marketing for restaurants. Before delving any further, look at the many benefits your restaurant can have from using social media.
Below is an example of how your social media page can help you grow your customer base.
People rely on their smartphones to check out the popular restaurant in town. The next place they will be heading to is your fan page. They look for the number of likes, reviews, and comments from other customers to validate the performance of your restaurant.
How does social media marketing work for restaurants?
Any business depends solely on social media in the digital age. Social media has become the first place of advertisement for any business. And it plays a massive role in building up your restaurant brand. It has reached new heights even after the pandemic. People search for online reviews, recommendations, and social media ads to decide where they should get their next meal.
Next to online reviews, people rely on Facebook and Instagram for restaurant recommendations.
We have compiled some inspirational ideas to help you kickstart your social media marketing.
- Ask customers to leave reviews, comments, and share photos
- Promote your restaurant
- Fill out the essential information
- Add menus
- Take orders via Messenger
- Set up an action button
1.Ask Customers To Leave Reviews, Comments, and Share Photos
Social media reviews are very helpful in improving the reachability of your restaurant brand. Customer reviews serve as word-of-mouth advertising, that too for free. Research shows that 72% of users trust Facebook to make retail and restaurant decisions based on the comments and images shared by other users.
2.Promote Your Restaurant
Post pictures of the best dishes, promote your event and catering services if you have them, and advertise your latest and most incredible deals. Or post small, simple, and practical things like how customers can contact you and where they can find your restaurant.
3.Fill out the essential information
Keep your restaurant’s information page up to date. Update your contact information so that customers can easily find your contact information. If your customers can find you with only a few clicks, you are good to go. Ensure that all contact details, phone numbers, opening hours, closing hours, and locations are up to date.
4.Add menus
Upload a photo or a PDF of your menu card on your Facebook page. It gives customers easy access to what you offer. Additionally, Facebook will automatically generate a QR code that you can download to share online or print and display in your store. You can add Pickup and Delivery options and payment methods. You can also get creative in adding a write-up of the cuisine you specialize in.
Example of how the menu of a restaurant can be generated via QR code that is available on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
5.Take orders via Messenger
You can use Messenger to help your customers make easy payments. 75% of people would choose to text rather than make a phone call.
6.Set up an action button
Configure a CTA on your main fan page so users can contact you through Messenger, email, phone, or website. You can also connect the CTA button to book a table and connect it to any delivery platform.
How to boost your social media profile?
- Schedule events
- Create special offers and coupons
- Schedule with Autopublishing
- Involve your employees
- Show behind the scenes
- Show off what matters
- Ask questions to the audience
- Use user generated content
- Host contents
- Use advertising
- Keep up with the latest trends
1.Schedule events
Organize special events and let people know about them. If you offer free drinks as a giveaway on any particular day, advertise it on your Facebook page and ask people to opt-in if they are interested. It is a great way to reach new customers.
2.Create special offers and coupons
Feature all your discounts and special offers on your Facebook page. Create an Offer in Ads Manager. As customers see it, they can save the offer and use it when visiting your restaurant. When you have a BOGO offer, customers can save it for later and use it when they visit the restaurant in person.
3.Schedule with Autopublishing
Outdated posts will discourage customers. Scheduling all your social media marketing campaigns should start well in advance. It will give you ample time to develop appropriate content for your posts. Using automated publishing tools like Kontentino can help you plan your social media content.
4.Involve your employees
Make your employees your brand advocates. Involve employees by showing your customers how they work. This enables your restaurant to stay in the minds of your customers as they have an opportunity to get connected with your team.
5.Show behind the scenes
Everybody likes to know what happens behind the scenes. Invite your customers for a virtual tour on Facebook. Show them what happens in the kitchen and how their favorite food is prepared.
6.Show off what matters
Express how valuable your customers are. Connect your customers to your vendor base from where you source the food to make your customers’ favorite dishes. Show how much their preferences and interests matter to you.
7.Ask questions to the audience
Frequently engage with your audience by asking them interesting questions. Please get to know them by having a Q&A session where they get to answer fun questions like what their favorite food is in your restaurant. You get to know what most of them enjoy eating the most.
8.Use user-generated content
Millennials trust user-generated posts 50% more than original content. Make sure you review the tags you are featured on. By doing so, you will find many high-quality posts that you can use on your account. It allows you to post more frequently without putting in a lot of effort, but don’t forget to tag the author.
9.Host contests
Come up with a creative topic, ask the participants to enter the contests, and encourage them to spread the word on social media. But make sure the reward has to be vast and beneficial, like a complimentary dinner for two.
10.Use advertising
With Facebook Ads, you can reach your audience precisely based on their age, location, interests, and behaviors. Choose where to feature the ad — on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network, etc.
11.Keep up with the latest trends
Staying in line with the latest trends is the key to running an attractive and practical social media marketing plan. Constantly reference current events and trends. Do more than follow the trends — be one to set them. Real-time marketing likes going viral. Try it.
How do restaurants create social media content?
Creating social media content involves adapting the best practices for restaurants on Instagram.
- Change your Instagram account to a business profile
- Fill out the Instagram info
- USe Instagram stories and IGTV
- Use relevant hashtags and location tags
- Collaborate with local influencers
- Keep the feed coherent
1.Change your Instagram account to a business profile.
Setting up an Instagram business profile is very important. Only then will you access all the statistics and features reserved for businesses, such as post promotion.
2.Fill out the Instagram bio
Your professional Instagram Bio is what people will notice at first. Ensure that it will encourage visitors to stay a little longer on your page. Add precise contact details, opening hours, and location, and add a link to your website or delivery platform.
3.Use Instagram Stories and IGTV
The digital age is a prominent place for video content. Use IG Stories to share yours behind the scenes.
Save your stories to help new visitors. People get to know your brand through such videos. And it will add value to your post. Explore all the Instagram management and marketing tools and utilize them to simplify your work a lot.
4.Use relevant hashtags and location tags
Research to find out the right hashtags to add to your post to increase your reach and drive organic impressions, so tracking their performance is vital. Add more than 5 hashtags in the first comment, which will trigger views.
Remember to add the location tags as people can easily locate your restaurant by searching for attractions within your town.
5.Collaborate with local influencers
The concept of influencer marketing continues to grow, so inviting local bloggers and influencers is an excellent way of promoting your brand. Also, local influencers can help spread the word about your restaurant within the local community, making them eager to visit your place.
6.Keep the feed coherent
Make your feed appealing and visually attractive, and maintain a uniform style so that everything has a consistent flow. Use the same illustration style for posts that use graphic design to keep that consistency.
Example of a coherent design that promotes a minimalistic approach and a fresh way of handling content that is not clutter to the eyes.
General Social Media Rules
Here are some of the general social media rules that you should always follow, no matter which platform you use.
- Use social media to build an email list
- Don’t forget to respond and track performance
- Create a wide variety of content
1.Use social media to build an email list
Drive email sign-ups through social media. Offer something unique to encourage people to leave their email addresses.
Treat your customers with a special birthday discount or a coupon and treat them uniquely. It will reward you.
2.Don’t forget to:
Respond
Interacting constantly with followers is essential. You should respond to all reviews, comments, and direct messages. Your social media profile should be live.
Track performance
Track your social media performance to calculate your results. You have two options to do this.
The first one is to analyze the statistics available on your Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The second option is to use customized metrics available in Kontentino, which allows you to get a detailed overview of your brand’s performance.
3.Create a wide variety of content
Avoid routine and add more fun by including fun posts that are not entirely about food but still related to food in a fun way. Diversifying content across your posts will give a different outlook to your content strategy and garner more attention than usual.
How do I promote my restaurant on social media?
- Post at the optimal time
- Align your social media strategy with your brand
1.Post at the optimal time
You will also need to consider when you will publish your content. You should know the exact time that will receive the most engagement. Determine which type of content should live at what time. It’s not enough to check the hours when social media users are most active, as you should also choose the right time for each content type — you shouldn’t share breakfast photos late at night, for example.
2.Align your social media strategy with your brand
Your content must be consistent with your brand across all social media platforms. If you have different messages on different platforms, they will not get that much exposure among your audiences accessing your brand through various platforms. Make sure to maintain a consistent brand image across all your social media accounts.
- Take advantage of the free tools
- Post regularly
- Collaborating with food bloggers
- Replying to your customer’s comments
- Running contests
- Instagram stories
- Run paid ads
1.Take Advantage Of The Free Tools
Opt for a business profile rather than a personal profile on Instagram. It comes with various tools that are not available in the personal profile. Please make use of it to create innovative posts for your restaurant brand. Add your phone number to your posts so people can book a reservation right away.
You can use the insights tools to see who follows you, view post-specific insights, and check your posts’ performance. You can easily track your ads and check if they are engaging because posting irrelevant content wouldn’t help your restaurant business flourish.
2.Post Regularly
Having an Instagram account is not enough. You have to regularly fill your page with relevant posts to ensure your followers and potential customers stay connected with you.
Posts stories regularly, which would make your feed look appealing and help increase customer engagement.
3.Collaborating With Food Bloggers
Collaborate with food bloggers and influencers in your area. Partner with them to popularize your brand. They will already have a relevant followers list. It will make it easier for you to reach out to ideal customers.
Partnering with local bloggers is a great way to improve the potential to reach a new audience. Invite food bloggers to review your restaurant, which may cost anywhere between Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 for a post in India.
4.Replying To Your Customer’s Comments
The secret to success on any social media platform is engagement. Take time to reply to people’s comments on your page. Address both positive and negative comments. Analyze the behavior of your followers by reading every comment that they post.
5.Running contests
Similar to Facebook, running contests on Instagram is an excellent way of having people interact with your restaurant’s Instagram page. Give out good rewards for a better response. Choose rewards like a free starter or a discount coupon.
For example, ask your guests to post a picture of the food they order at your restaurant and tag your page. And announce that the photo with the highest number of likes would be crowned the winner. This engagement can bring in more followers.
6.Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are a massive hit among users. Instagram stories gain more engagement, and it is a great way to promote your restaurant. Suppose you have more than ten thousand followers on your Instagram business page. In that case, you can use the Swipe Up option, add quick links to your online ordering portal, and include table reservations and more to make the stories actionable.
7.Run Paid Ads
Instagram for business allows businesses to run ads, which boosts the performance of the posts to influence a wider audience. Utilize this Instagram feature to target based on the demography and behavior of the customers. It will help you refine the audience and ensure that your ad is visible to the right people.
Define the objective of your ad and what you want to achieve. Do you want to increase the customer reach, or do you want to increase reservations? You can include a Call-to-action such as ‘Book Now’ or ‘Order Now.’
Run a combination of Story Ads, Carousel Ads, Photo Ads, and Video Ads.
1.Social Media Marketing is important for restaurants because it:
2.Provides information and creates meaningful customer relationships
3.Enhances the online presence of your restaurant
4.Makes your recipes available online
5.Enhances your professional identity
6.Improves legitimacy of your restaurant
Social media platforms help promote your brand when the right social media marketing strategies are appropriately instituted.
Today, Facebook has become the new Rulebook for people to keep up-to-date on what is trending. Instagram stands next in facilitating people in decision-making.
Conclusion
Social Media is the lifeline of your brand promotion technique. However, establishing your brand’s presence across social media shouldn’t be as daunting as it seems to be. Social media platforms are all about people and building meaningful relationships. Build a loyal customer network by incorporating the appropriate ways for customer engagement through your posts.
Follow these social media marketing tips for restaurants, and you will enjoy long-term benefits as you gain popularity and loyalty from your regular customers and incoming potential customers.
